Broken Social Scene

Arts & Crafts;
2005

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Expectations are a bitch. Ask J.D. Salinger. Or George Lucas. Or Kevin Shields. After Broken Social Scene stumbled out of the incestuous Toronto alt-rock scene with Feel Good Lost-- a postrumental refrigerator-hum stiff of a debut-- few would have guessed this group of scruffed-up bohos had a veritable classic lurking in their collective consciousness. Then, ignited by a rabid internet reception, You Forgot It in People gracefully went boom, and lots of people remembered why they loved indie rock-- the shambling ecstasy, the pitch-perfect experimentation, the unabashed heart-on-sleeveness of it all.

Now, with file-sharers queuing up like mad and pre-orders bumping them to Amazon Top 50 status, the collective reacts to the furor by expanding and magnifying; another six members join the brood for its self-titled third full-length, and the band's once-refined studio sound is blown up into a pixilated blur of blood-gush guitars and squall-of-sound production that's somehow meticulously unhinged. This exercise in excess makes the ambitious You Forgot It in People seem positively understated by comparison.

De facto band leader Kevin Drew recently told Pitchfork that Broken Social Scene producer (and NYPD punching bag) David Newfeld "got addicted to the idea of trying to top YFIIP." He added: "His massage therapist says he might die in 10 years unless he changes his lifestyle." It's Newfeld's risky mixing and uncanny knack for coalescing myriad instruments and voices into a propulsive whole that defines this new album. Whereas You Forgot It in People was exacting and refined-- each cymbal crash snipped to perfection, each underlying string melody was spare and to-the-point-- Broken Social Scene is wily and flowing. Just consider each disc's mood-setting introduction: YFIIP's "Capture the Flag" is muted and tasteful; BSS's "Our Faces Split the Coast in Half" gets out of bed, trips, falls down, does a sloppy summersault, and gets back up no worse for the wear. The contrasting titles alone-- one direct, one Dali-esque-- speak volumes. But, however symbolic, "Faces" is only a casual stretch, with follower "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Half)" serving as the album's first true workout.

"Ibi" breaks in with a woozy, five-alarm guitar-- a warning call for the track's off-key surrealism and pile-on distortion. Like the shaky ascent of a homemade rocketship, the song constantly teeters on cataclysmic oblivion; shards of chords slip away and grind against each other as the track embarks. Buried between the static and the void, mumbled vocals are folded in before the brass enters and elevates the endeavor to fist-pumping, room-on-fire glory.

That track's garbled vocals and lyrical ambiguity are filtered throughout this record. With no accompanying lyric sheet, most of the album's highly interpretable words not only provide fans with a time-wasting message-board guessing game but add another layer of atmospheric haze to the group's already out-there takes on sex, politics, and that whole indies-vs.-majors thing. On the wispy, faux-idyllic "Major Label Debut", the chorus could be "I'm all hooked up" or "I'm all fucked up," but either meaning snidely puts down the rockstar clichés Broken Social Scene are determined to avoid.

Anyone's who's been to a Broken Social Scene show over the past few years probably knows "Major Label Debut" as a rollicking, open hi-hat dust storm. But here, that version is relegated to an accompanying EP (otherwise filled with mostly expendable outtakes and instrumentals) while the album version is slowed down and fogged up-- and decidedly less single-worthy. Another live favorite and possible crossover contender, "Superconnected", is still catchy on record, but Newfeld's all-at-once, in-between-vox production subverts any chance at overt smashdom.

Such insular stubbornness leads to Broken Social Scene's few overly self-indulgent moments, when their lack of inhibitions turns from charming to faintly annoying. Their tendency to jam out-- not entirely surprising given bassist Brendan Canning's striking Trey Anastasio-meets-Elmo look-- turn the seven-minute "Bandwitch" into an aimless jumble. Along with the similarly too-free-spirited "Windsurfing Nation" and "Handjobs for the Holidays", such unchecked exorbitance damages the album's hard-won continuity.

But a few regrettable overreachings are somewhat inevitable when a band tries to top a record as strong as YFIIP. Looser and slightly kinkier, Broken Social Scene indulges in the pop eccentricities and keen melodic ears of more than a dozen Canadians who take willful pride in their ability to lock together into one solid unit and make good on the sum of their unique individual talents. With its doomsday provocation of a title, the epic Springsteenian endcap "It's All Gonna Break" bursts forth with enough ideas to keep a lesser band productive for years. The song ecstatically encapsulates Broken Social Scene's heightened ambitions and flawed Icarus journeys, conflating into a bold, brash love-in infatuated with its own bumps and bruises.